A secret US Pentagon study “casts doubt on whether the multibillion-dollar missile defense system planned for Europe can ever protect the US from Iranian ballistic missiles...” Clearly, the missile shield against Iran, which aroused ire in Moscow, is about to fall under the axe of US defense budget cuts. debkafile: Scrapping it will leave Israel and Turkey undefended against Iranian missile attack. But if Tehran can put a satellite in orbit of 36,000 kilometers above earth, as Ahmadinejad boasts, America is just as exposed.

An authoritative US military source told debkafile Sunday, Aug. 5 that US armed forces stand ready for war with Iran. Without going into who would lead the operation to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, the US or Israel, the US Air Force will undertake to destroy Iran’s Shehab-3 ballistic missile batteries aimed at Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israeli Air Force would then be left free to tackle the huge rocket arsenals of Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami.

The US, Israel and Iran embarked on significant military steps Tuesday, May 1, refuting certain US media reports of a lessening in war tensions over Iran: Shortly after Israel launched a big war exercise on its northern borders with Syria and Lebanon, Iran’s border guards initiated naval drills along its southern coast where nuclear facilities, Revolutionary Guards bases and oilfields are situated. The United States disclosed that the first phase of its anti-Iran missile defense network for protecting Europe was complete.

Moscow has stepped into the vacuum created by US President Barack Obama’s decision to stay out of Middle East troubles while campaigning for a second term. After blocking the way to direct Western and Arab military intervention in Syria through the Mediterranean, Russia sent its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan – to secure Iran against a potential US/Israeli attack via its northern and eastern neighbors, debkafile reports. Armenia is to host a Russian radar station.

A new US intelligence position paper addressed to the Oval Office makes Tayyip Erdogan the linchpin of Obama’s Middle East and Iran policies after he showed the flag by accepting a US radar station, part of NATO’s anti-Iran missile shield. This won him a harsh dressing-down by Khamenei.

A successful joint exercise carried out Friday, Feb. 10, demonstrated the interoperability of the US Aegis and Israel's Arrow 2 Block 4 ballistic missile defense systems and, most importantly, of their radar systems: the two US AN/TPY-2 X-band stations in Israel's Negev and Turkey's Kurecik air base, and Israel's new EL/M-2080 Super Green Pine. debkafile's military sources report the test proved to be a key milestone in the development of the US missile shield's Middle East capabilities ahead of a potential war with Iran.

A senior US emissary promised Israel that its X-band radar station in Turkey would share data with Israel on a coming Iranian missile attack – contrary to the Turkish foreign minister's assurances to Tehran.

After deploying three warships in Syrian waters, Moscow continues to beat war drums against the United States and Israel, followed closely by Tehran. Wednesday, Nov. 23, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced he had ordered "the armed forces to develop measures to ensure we can destroy the command and control systems" of the planned US missile-defense system in Europe. debkafile: Those systems also control Israel's missile defenses against Iranian, Syria and Hizballah missiles and the X-Band radar station in the Israeli Negev.